Centre of Time
by BellaSwanWings
Summary: He’s ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time and can see the turn of the universe… and he’s wonderful” Aine has loved travelling with the Doctor... until now.
1. Prologue

"_He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time and can see the turn of the universe… and he's wonderful"_

But who is he really?

I am Aine Windsinger, a companion of the mysterious Doctor, a time lord who travels in time and space. I've been travelling with him for five hundred years, he says. But it seems like only a day has passed since we met.

It happened by chance. The chance that a butterfly might collide into a tree ten thousand metres tall, the tallest tree in the world, to which it is so insignificant to, and reach the top.

I was climbing stairs on the Eiffel Tower, as I was chance to bumping into a tall, lanky man with a blue suit, red converse shoes and thick glasses teamed with greasy brown hair.

He looked like he had seen the stars for the first time, enjoyed the taste of too much wine. He was drunk with excitement, and I did not know what for.

Stuck for a whole day in a city I hardly knew, I decided to follow this excitement-loving man to the top. Breathless and tired, I decided to take the lift.

When I took the lift to the top, he was already there.

"How…?" I muttered, but the man seemed to hear me.

"I've done a lot of running in _my_ life" he explained, "I've been everywhere, seen almost everything, but nothing"

I squinted, against the setting sun and confusion of this man. He spoke as if he knew everything, but he had admitted he didn't.

"Why were you running?" I asked, wondering.

"Practising"he replied, "and I've never been at the top of the Eiffel Tower at sunset"

"Practising? Are you, what, an athlete?"

The man laughed out aloud, a huge grin spreading across his handsome face, "You know, in my nine hundred years I've never been asked that. Never." He continued to laugh and gestured to himself, "Do I look like an athlete?"

Abashed, and not sure I enjoyed him making fun of me, I replied, "I guess not"

From then on, we have been inseparable. Hand-in-hand on each new adventure, leaping from star to star, galaxy to galaxy in the TARDIS which has become my home.

Until now.

**A/N: Sorry I changed her name... It used to be Katie, now it is Aine. You'll find out why later on. Thanks for reading!**


	2. The voice

Chapter one – The Voice

_I leaned out across the ages. I gave my hand to his, searched his eyes with mine. My eyes, which have seen only half of what he has seen. His eyes gleamed with untouchable sadness, with grief and despair, and something more. That something more was something he had never felt before. Disappointment. In himself? In me?_

_I will never know, for now I am trapped, and will never leave._

_I tried to hold onto his hand forever, tried to grasp it with all my strength, the only link to my survival, the only way I could ever return. His words haunted my thoughts, his betrayal seared my heart. "Don't let go, Aine, don't ever let go" he had told me, while holding her hand. While caressing her face with his breath. While searching her face, and not mine. _

_Not long after, I had given up. The Doctor had given up on me, after all, why should I hold on to someone who isn't there?_

The Doctor bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, "Rose! Do you know where we are?"

Rose was confused. It was Earth.

"Earth, Doctor?"

"No, it's not Earth. Look at the sky"

Rose looked up. Through her sunglasses, the sky was black. "Oh, it's nighttime" she observed carefully, "What are the odds?"

The Doctor sighed, reaching over to pull her sunglasses onto her head, "Look"

Rose gasped. The sky was a strange fusion of purple and blue, and indigo colour that no paint mixture could possibly create.

"Impossible…"

"No, not impossible. We're on Purple"

"What, like, the colour?" asked Rose stupidly. The Doctor nodded.

"Duh. The colour. Like the sky." She nodded slowly, feeling idiotic.

"Sorry, Doctor"

"No matter. Look, over here" he said, running to stand atop a small hill.

Rose looked into the distance, "but that's… that's… the Big Ben?"

The Doctor nodded, "yes, of course"

"But you said we were on Purple, not Earth! You weren't trying to make some kind of joke because I don't think that it's overly funny-"

"No, no, no. If you understood the joke, I'd be surprised, but there is no joke"

Rose's eyebrows knitted together.

"This isn't Earth. Purple creates visual projections that resemble those of other planets. Oh, look. There's Logopolis!" He pointed, with an outstretched hand, to a large sandy-coloured region of Purple.

Rose squinted against the sun.

"Why the hell is it so bright?" she complained, putting her sunglasses back on.

The Doctor stopped breathing as he caught sight of an Eiffel tower in the distance.

"What is it, Doctor?" asked Rose, who had been so accustomed to the Doctor's chatter, "Doctor?"

"_Remember the girl, Doctor, the little girl on the top of the tower… left alone, abandoned. You let her down."_

A strange, gloomy voice resonated throughout the strange land. Rose looked up, rather frightened. She took a step closer to the Doctor.

"What…? What girl? Who is that voice, Doctor?"

_Listen to the voice. It knows you better than you know yourself. It knows your past, your future, and your innermost capabilities. I know you both._

"Doctor?" by this point, Rose was very alarmed; she grabbed the doctor's arm.

"It's no-one, Rose. Just a projection, like the Eiffel tower and the Big Ben. A projection of the past. Nothing more"

"But you said visual projections-"

"Projections."

"No, you specifically said, _visual_ projections. This isn't visual, Doctor, this is… hearing"

_I can see the universe. It hurts my head but it won't stop. The voices, the voices of the past, of those who died, of the future, of those yet to live. I am trapped in the centre of time"_

"Doctor!" exclaimed Rose, "Did you hear that?"

"It's nothing, Rose" repeated the Doctor, reassuring both himself and his young friend, "I think we had better leave" The Doctor pulled Rose by the arm lightly, and with a slight run, he reached the TARDIS and clicked his fingers to open the doors.

_I loved him. Those days on the Mountains of Pern we would stare into each other's eyes, while taking in the atmosphere. The slight breath of wind on my face, the tears of rain that fell onto my skin. All these are memories I have never forgotten. And then she came. Intellectually incapable of understanding him, the love of my life, my existence, yet somehow her idiocy and bright smiles were infectious. He harboured for her a love that defaced my own, made me second best. She, a mere earthling, had stolen his hearts. She was a greedy thing, and her name still sticks to my thoughts like an infectious plague. Her bright smile and golden hair overshadow the plainness of her looks, but somehow I find solace in knowing that her eyes will never see what I have seen, her ears would never hear the words I heard. For Rose Tyler would soon be dead._

_To be Continued…_


End file.
